I may be one of the few remaining subscribers to the print edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The morning newspaper has been a habit with me since I was in grade school, and I usually look forward to reading it with my morning coffee. However, yesterday morning I opened the paper and saw a truly terrifying headline.

KEMP: I’LL CARRY OUT CONSERVATIVE AGENDA.

It’s not good to be threatened that early in the morning. Like a good masochist, I read the story from beginning to end. It said that Kemp had told reporters that he would not retreat from pledges to enact new abortion restrictions or gun rights expansions.

He said, “I’ve been a strong supporter of the Second amendment, and I’m going to continue to do that. I’ve been a strong supporter of life. And I’m going to continue to do that.

“That’s what Georgians want."

To be fair, he also said that he would support a $600 million package to increase teacher pay. He didn’t say how he would do that while cutting taxes.  

My first reaction to the article (after abject terror) was that it was a typical Georgia Republican screed, setting up straw men and ignoring very important issues in the state. My second was that I am a Georgian, have been for more than fifty years, and nothing except the increased teacher’s pay is what I want.

And it’s obviously not what nearly half of the Georgians who voted in the elections want.

Kemp, for instance, is a proponent of “Constitutional Carry.” This simply means that anyone can carry a weapon without the bother of securing a permit. It’s about the only way for a Georgia politician to prove his Second Amendment bona fides since it’s now legal to carry a firearm pretty much anywhere that politicians are not congregated. Currently, our state is tied with Utah as the 19^th deadliest state in the country in terms of deaths by shooting, and hardly a day passes when the news doesn’t have at least one story of someone being shot.  

This morning, the AJC reported a shooting in a Target parking lot near my house. Two upstanding citizens became enraged when neither would give way as they were both trying to get around a truck. The woman shot the man, who is listed in critical but stable condition.

I don’t see how “Constitutional Carry” would improve our safety. On the other hand, Kemp’s opponent, Stacey Abrams proposed three measures that have worked to reduce shootings elsewhere: restrict firearms for domestic abusers, allow families to petition for Extreme Risk Protection Orders if they feel that a family member is a danger to themselves or others, and to expand background checks to include private gun sales. To me it’s not a Constitutional question, it’s simply which of these plans would more likely keep me or a member of my family from getting shot in a Target parking lot.

The rest of Kemp’s laundry list of conservative values includes abortion restrictions, so-called Religious Liberty legislation, fighting Expanded Medicaid, cutting taxes and streamlining government. With the exception of Expanded Medicaid, none of these are at the top of the problems list in Georgia. They are essentially straw men designed to disguise wealth transfer from the middle class to the very wealthy.

It’s difficult to foresee exactly what Kemp’s four years will look like. There are other factors which influence the state government, like the legislature. (That thought doesn’t give me a lot of comfort, though.) However, to me, his plans don’t bode well for the health and safety of our citizens.

We are, as already noted, 19^th out of 50 in terms of deaths by fire arms.

One in five of our children are “nutritionally insecure,” sanitized bureaucratic-speak for hungry.

We have a greater percentage of citizens without health insurance than about 45 other states, and while Kemp’s tax credits for rural hospitals might save some of them, it won’t do a thing to provide insurance the uninsured population. (Kemp is calling on Dr. Tom Price to help him with that. Price was one of several who promised to replace the ACA with better, more affordable coverage, but didn’t.)

Kemp’s attack ads during the campaign called Abrams’ plan to implement Expanded Medicaid in Georgia “extreme,” ignoring the fact that 33 states, some with Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures, had already implemented it, that it reduced the length of hospital stays and improved outcomes, and that if a state had a combined income tax rate and sales tax rate of at least 7.5%, the increased economic activity would more than pay for the 10% of the cost that the state would bear. Instead, Kemp is willing to allow other states to export at least a part of their health care costs to Georgia.

We have the worst maternal mortality in the nation right now, and nothing in Kemp’s comments indicates that dying mothers is even on his radar.

And, finally, there’s the fact that we seem to have two Georgias, one in the metropolitan areas and one in the rural areas. They exist within the same state boundaries but appear to have little else in common. And nothing in Kemp’s comments seem to be concerned with bringing those two Georgias together. Perhaps we need to remind him that he, even though he was the Secretary of State and was overseeing the election, won by a very narrow margin, that 1,907,965 Georgians didn’t vote for his Conservative agenda, and there will be another election in four years.